ADDRESS OF 

OTiUiam C. Jlroton 

General Manager 
Chicago, Burlington ^ Quincy Railroad 

DELIVERED AT 

Quarter -Century Celebration 

OF Incorporation of the 

City of Hamburg 



HAMBURG, IOWA, APRIL 25, 1892 



Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen : 

After having been associated with and having acted as 
a leader of the wandering hosts of Israel for nearly half 
a century, and just before the advent of that people into 
the land of promise and plenty, Moses admonished the people 
to remember all the way in which the Lord their God had 
led them. 

In all ages and among all people it has been customary 
to set apart special days for the purpose of reviewing with 
retrospective interest the history of the past. 

We are gathered here this evening to celebrate with its 
good citizens the twenty-fifth anniversary of the incorpora- 
tion of the city of Hamburg; to trace with reverent, grate- 
ful hearts the providential blessings of the past quarter of a 
century; and to indulge the. hope that the present may be 
but the threshold of a future prosperity and growth greater 
than Hamburg has yet enjoyed. 

I am glad to be permitted to speak for a few minutes 
to an audience composed very largely of citizens of Iowa. 
Fifty years ago this present month, my father, then a young 
man, left the State of New York to settle in the territory 
of Iowa. A sainted mother, two brothers, and two little 
ones have found a resting place beneath her soil. 

I feel for the State of Iowa that full measure of filial 
affection which a dutiful son should bear an honored and 
indulgent mother; an affection which time or change of 
residence cannot efface. I am proud of her history, I have 
an abiding faith in the ultimate fairness of her citizens and 
an unshaken confidence in the future of this great Hawkeye 
state. 

Page One 



I have been asked to say something this evening about 
the railroads of Iowa and the bearing and influence they have 
exerted upon the prosperity of your city. I would do vio- 
lence to my own feelings and injustice to Fremont county, if, 
in this connection, I failed to speak of your first railroad. 

It was a peculiar railroad. It had no charter. It never 
had a public organization. The location of its right of way, 
like the location of the grave of Moses on Mount Nebo's 
lonely brow, was unknown to mortal man. It was a rail- 
road not built with hands, "Whose builder and maker was 
God" — a railroad the southern terminus of which was en- 
shrouded in the clouds and darkness of human slavery; its 
northern terminus was bright and glorious in the sunlight 
of liberty. 

It was in Fremont County that the poor down-trodden 
and oppressed passenger upon the underground railway 
breathed in his first inspiration of the life-giving atmosphere 
of freedom, and here the chains of bondage worn by him- 
self and his ancestors for centuries were loosened. 

The history of the inception and building of the now ex- 
isting railways of Hamburg was a counterpart of similar 
experiences all over the west. It was a struggle against 
obstacles and circumstances which would have discouraged 
less persistent and determined men. 

On the 6th day of November, 1859, ground was first 
broken at Council Bluffs on the Council Bluffs & St. Joseph 
Railroad. Contracts were let and the prospects seemed 
favorable for the speedy construction of the road. The 
work was commenced so late that little could be accomplished 
that year, and operations were suspended with the intention 
of an early resumption in the spring. 

In 1860, the clouds of rebellion which had for years 
been gathermg in the southern horizon, had risen and grown 

In Exchange. p^^^ ^^ 

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so threatening as to overshadow all other questions, and 
active operations on the road were indefinitely discontinued. 
The organization, however, was carefully maintained, and 
on July 13, 1861, the following directors were elected : 

James A. Jackson, J. T. Baldwin, Horace Everett, J. P. 
Casady, Samuel Knepper, Edward Gilliland, W. C. Sipple, 
S. F. Nuckolls, and R. L. Douglass. The same directors 
were annually elected during the continuance of the war, 
with but few changes. 

In this presence, little need be said of that momentous 
period embraced in the years 1861 to 1865. The history of 
those days of anxiety and nights of watching was written 
in letters of blood in Fremont County. We all know that 
the sword unsheathed at the little village of Tabor, and which 
fell from the nerveless hand of John Brown on the scaf- 
fold at Charleston, was caught up by half a million loyal 
hands, and that it flashed and burned upon a hundred fields 
of battle from Gettysburg to the Gulf; that the old cannon 
which was concealed in the barn of Elder John Todd at 
Tabor was replaced by a thousand batteries of artillery, 
which for four years blazed and thundered from the Ohio 
to the Gulf, and from the Father of Waters to the seas ; 
and when the clouds lifted and peace came, the sun shone 
upon a country with but one flag, upon a nation without a 
slave. 

In July, 1865, the annual meeting of the Council Blufifs 
& St. Joseph Railway was held at Council Bluffs and a board 
of directors chosen. At this meeting the board elected the 
following officers : R. L. Douglass, president ; J. P. Casady, 
vice-president ; Horace Everett, treasurer ; and Samuel 
Jacobs, secretary. On September 23d following, a contract 
was made with Willis Phelps of Springfield, Mass., to build 
the road. 

Page Three 



The road was completed to the north Hne of Fremont 
County, January 1, 1867, and to Hamburg during the 
autumn of the same year ; later, but during the same year, 
the line from St. Joseph was completed to a connection with 
the road from Council Bluffs. Two years later the road 
leading from Red Oak to Hamburg was commenced and was 
completed in the spring of 1870. This gave Hamburg and 
Fremont County railroad communication with Omaha and 
Council Blufifs, and the vast territory in the northwest and 
west, to which these cities are gateways, with St. Joseph 
and Kansas City as their tributary territory, and with 
Chicago and the great markets of the east. 

Those of us who lived in Iowa before the days of rail- 
roads know by experience something of the benefits con- 
ferred upon communities by the building of these great 
arteries of commerce. To my hearers who for years listened 
with impatient intentness for the sound of the whistle, which 
proclaimed the coming of your first railroad, I need not 
attempt to describe how exceedingly welcome to the pioneers 
of Iowa these railroads were. 

We believed the construction of these roads would help 
build up, beautify, and enrich this state of ours. We knew 
that the long lines of steel and iron stretching like ribbons of 
silver from Iowa back through the Buckeye State, the 
Keystone and Empire States, to New England, would bring 
us into closer proximity and in a measure reunite us with 
the dear old home back in the east, and the loved ones who, 
with tear dimmed eyes, had bade us good-bye when we 
started for the wilderness west of the Mississippi. 

My friends, I believe the railroads have redeemed in 
bountiful measure every promise, every pledge, and have 
fulfilled our m.ost hopeful anticipation. 



Page Four 



We are prone to forget past circumstances and condi- 
tions, and I desire to quote briefly from the recorded ut- 
terances of some of the earHer settlers of Iowa. 

A letter written by a settler in Grundy County (now 
one of the richest and most prosperous counties in the state) 
in 1856, says: 

"While the land is fertile and productive 
almost beyond belief to one accustomed to our 
stony land at home, we are all in terribly 
straitened circumstances. We have an abun- 
dance of everything we produce, and a large sur- 
plus to spare, but it is almost worthless for want 
of a market. Wheat must be hauled 110 miles 
to the river and will bring only from 35 to 40 
cents per bushel. The trip takes from eight to 
ten days and is a hard one. Feed must be carried 
for the team and provender for the driver, in 
order to have anything left with which to buy 
sugar, coffee, salt, and the few articles of cloth- 
ing which we must have. If tavern bills and 
feed for team were counted, the expenses would 
more than eat up the load of wheat." 

The following extract from a letter written by James 
W. Grimes of Burlington, afterwards governor of the state, 
will indicate that, while Iowa at that time possessed all the 
fertihty of soil which has given her pre-eminence among the 
agricultural states of the union, she was far from pros- 
perous, or even promising, on account of lack of trans- 
portation facilities : 

"We have hard times here, such as were 
never conceived of in the east. I saw a man to- 
day who had been keeping a shop ; he was obliged 
to sell on credit and had, beside book accounts, 
small notes due to the amount of $2,500, yet he 
could not raise money enough to buy a bushel of 
corn meal for his family. The settlers have no 

Page Five 



resources of capital or credit, and many of them 
are unable to even pay the government the small 
sum of a dollar and a quarter per acre for their 
land. Of course, there is no trouble in raising 
enough to eat, but the fertility of the soil and the 
industry of the settlers are almost valueless with- 
out a market." 
Another of the old settlers writes thus : 

"Land and everything has gone down in 
value to almost nominal prices. Corn and oats 
can be bought from six to ten cents per bushel ; 
pork one dollar a hundred ; and the best horse 
a man can raise will not sell for fifty dollars. 
Nearly all are in debt, and the sheriff and con- 
stables with legal processes are common visitors 
at every man's door." 

This condition of things was in a section of country as 
fair and fertile as the sun of heaven ever shone upon, and 
not entirely destitute of means of transportation ; for it was 
in counties the eastern borders of which were washed by the 
Mississippi river, affording water transportation to St. Louis 
and other southern markets, giving it a very great advantage 
over sections lying remote from that stream. 

In the interior counties of the state, until relief was 
afiforded by the building of railroads, land was almost worth- 
less. The product of the farm (corn and wheat) could be 
disposed of only by a tedious and expensive journev to the 
distant market on the river. Butter, eggs, and poultry, 
which now form so important a factor in the product of 
Iowa, had no market value, as it was impossible to haul 
those commodities these long distances without rendering 
them unfit for use. 

Your own historian has left on record his estimates of 
the beneficial influences of the railroads upon Fremont 
county in the following language : 

Page Six 



'The almost incalculable advantages to be 
derived from railroad facilities are offered at 
their liest to the inhabitants of Fremont county. 
The creation of points of sale and shipment for 
agricultural products increase the value of farm 
property, and this country everywhere shows, 
in its rich, well-cultivated farms and fine build- 
ings, the benefits of home markets and the high- 
est facilities for transportation. To arrest or 
seriously delay the conveyance of what now 
comes and goes so promptly by rail and express, 
would be to take away what constitutes civiliza- 
tion and to remand the community thus affected 
to comparative barbarism." 
Before the advent of railroads settlement was exceed- 
ingly slow. The soil of Iowa possessed then all the elements 
of fertility and productiveness which have since made her a 
very queen among the agricultural, horticultural and stock 
raising states of the Union. The seed time was followed 
by a bountiful harvest, but the wealth of golden grain was 
almost as valueless as the soil from which it sprung, for want 
of facilities for transporting it to the market. 

The pioneer railroads did not wait until the country 
had attained a population and a stage of prosperity which 
would guarantee a profitable business. A policy of this kind 
would have rendered impossible the wonderful growth of 
the west which we have seen, and would have postponed 
almost indefinitely the prosperity which we now enjoy. 

The railroads were pioneers, willing to cast their lot 
with other pioneers, and content to share with them hard 
times and adversity, believing that for Iowa and the west 
there was a marvelous future. 

An incident will serve to illustrate. In June, 1866, a 
party of two gentlemen started from the western terminus 
of the B. & M. road (then just west of Ottumwa) to drive 

Page Seven 



across the state of Iowa. The mission of the party was to 
look the country over, and report upon the expediency of 
extending the railroad westward. 

After several days riding, a clear and beautiful morning 
found the company on the summit of the eminence where 
is now located the bustling little city of Creston. The scene 
which was presented was one of surpassing beauty. Stretch- 
ing away in every direction in undulating hill and valley, 
until the billowy waves of green met and blended with the 
azure tint of the summer sky, an empire of fertile, pro- 
ductive land, with only here and there a dot on the landscape, 
indicating where some settler had located his claim, spread 
out before them. 

After gazing upon the scene for some time, remarking 
the beauty and natural advantages of the country, and the 
evident fertility of the soil, the elder gentleman, then a 
veteran in the railway service, announced as his opinion 
that twenty years must elapse before the country they had 
traversed, and that which lay before them, would justify the 
building of a railroad, or would afford sufficient traffic 
to support one if built. 

The younger gentleman, then only twenty-seven years 
of age, and occupying a subordinate position on the B. & M. 
road, with perhaps some of the hopefulness and enthusiasm 
of youth, but with an abiding confidence in the future pos- 
sibilities of the State of Iowa, dissented from the opinion of 
his senior. He believed that the construction of the road 
would develop and settle up the country ; would establish in- 
dustries and create business which would in much less than 
twenty years furnish a volume of business which would 
justify its construction. 

The elder gentleman was Mr. James F. Joy, then 
president of the Michigan Central railroad and a veteran in 

Page Eight 



railway service. The younger gentleman who had faith in 
Iowa then, and who has demonstrated his confidence many 
times and in many ways since then, was Mr. C. E. Perkins, 
now president of the Burlington system of railroads. 

Mr. Joy wa§ right. Had the building of the road been 
deferred until the country was sufficiently settled to furnish 
traffic enough to justify its construction, twenty years was 
not too long a time to accomplish the result. 

Mr. Perkins was correct and wise beyond his years 
when he recommended that the railroad (instead of waiting 
for others to build up and develop the country) should join 
hands with the settlers, share with them the hardships and 
privations of the early days, and assist in developing and 
enriching the state. 

To an audience composed of citizens of southwestern 
Iowa, and familiar with the wonderful advancement and de- 
velopment of that portion of the state through which the 
B. & M. road was built, it is not necessary for me to say 
that the judgment of Mr. Perkins has been fully vindicated. 

The cities of Albia, Knoxville, Indianaola, Chariton, 
Osceola, Creston, Corning, Villisca, Clarinda, Red Oak, 
Shenandoah, your own beautiful city of Hamburg, and many 
others, are living monuments which will for all time testify 
to the beneficent results that follow the building of a rail- 
road through a country not supplied with this means of 
transportation. 

The broad-acred productive farms with their thrifty 
well-kept buildings crowning the hill tops, the flocks and 
herds grazing upon the hill sides and in the valley, the busy 
villages with their happy homes, their school houses, and 
churches, are evidences and arguments which prove more 
eloquently and more conclusively than can any words of 
mine, that the railroads as pioneers with other pioneers have 

Page Nine 



wrought out the civilization, the prosperity, and the happy 
conditions we now enjoy. 

In the early days the people and the railroads had a 
common interest and were striving for a common purpose. 
Together they worked with singleness of purpose, and with 
earnestness, to build up and advance the material interests 
of this, their adopted home. Adversity for one meant ad- 
versity for the other. Neither could enjoy prosperity with- 
out sharing it with the other, and to this harmony and 
unity of action much of the great measure of prosperity and 
growth, which marked the first decade after the opening 
of the road, may be attributed. 

There should be no conflict between the railroads and 
the people whom they serve, and who are their patrons. 
There has never been a time, and a time will never come 
when the best interest of the people and those of the rail- 
roads, if properly understood, will not lie in parallel lines. 

In dealing with a railroad, as in business transactions 
of any character, and between any parties, there may be dif- 
ferences of opinion. Such differences can and should be 
settled equitably, fairly, and satisfactorily. In order to se- 
cure this desirable result, it is essential that the people and 
the railroads get into closer touch, that both appreciate more 
clearly than they have ever done how inseparably inter- 
woven their interests are. 

Each should deal with the other in a spirit of reason, 
fairness, and good neighborhood. Neither should expect 
absolutely to dictate terms, but each should be willing to 
concede something and above all to impute to the other the 
same fairness and good faith which should govern his own 
actions. 

When tins happy time comes there will be few questions 
or controversies between the people and the railroads for 
adjudication by court or commission. 

Page Ten 



In conclusion, when charges are made against the rail- 
roads, when politicians or agitators rail against them, I ask 
you to investigate the charges fairly, impartially, and without 
prejudice. 

I ask you to remember that the railroads were pioneers 
with you in blazing the way into this wilderness ; that with 
you they participated in the great work of laying broad and 
deep the foundation for the prosperity which we now enjoy. 

Remember that the railroads are friends and neighbors, 
not enemies or strangers. Accept their friendship and their 
co-operation, and I believe that the progress of the past 
twenty-five years, wonderful as it has been, will seem as 
nothing compared with the record of the quarter of a century 
upon which you as a city are now entering. 



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